Realms of infamy

if he has retired to his room yet.'

She slipped through a door behind the desk. Instinctively he knew that charm would be wasted on her. Force and threats were the only persuasion these people would understand. All he had to do was make Mirrortor show him where the oldest texts were hidden. The rest would be easy. Kill the gnome, pack the books into the bag of holding he had concealed inside his tunic, come back to the main room, kill the girl, and slip away. The dagger in his boot should be enough to silence them.

The door opened again and the girl stepped out, followed by a white-haired gnome apparently dressed for bed. Not sure what he had expected, Chane felt almost amused. Perhaps he had unconsciously anticipated the famous gnome would exude an imposing air, that he would wear the robes of a highly placed loremaster. Instead Mirrortor wore an emerald green nightshirt and purple silk dressing gown with a bright red nightcap whose pointed top hung down past his shoulder.

'Can I help you, son?' the gnome yawned, making the tiny crinkles in his forehead and cheeks more apparent. 'It's rather late.'

'I'm here on business for Twilight Hall.' Chane fell into his authoritative voice. 'I need to see your most ancient texts, the very oldest that you keep.'

'Twilight Hall you say? Business? Cylyria told me nothing about… Aren't you a bit young for a loremaster?'

'That is not your concern.' Chane pulled an amulet from beneath his robe-the holy symbol of Oghma. 'Show me the books.'

Mirrortor shook his head and turned back to the door. There's no need to be snippy. The texts are always open for all to see. We have no secrets here. You need only ask '

You need only ask? What did that mean? If the books were readily available, why did no one ever come here? Perhaps the other loremasters read Mirrortor's books and simply never mentioned it.

Chane dismissed the notion as impossible. Anyone in his right mind would have attempted to remove the books and lay claim to them. Chane knew the contents of the Twilight Hall library by heart. There were no texts as priceless as the ones surely stored here. Perhaps Mirrortor's books were written in languages so old the loremasters could not translate them. Chane smiled slightly in the darkness. Dead languages were his specialty.

As he followed the gnome through the exit and into a narrow hallway, Chane found himself puzzling over the entire situation. Could it be this easy? If the texts were available to all, how were thieves held at bay? And what did Mirrortor hope to gain by sitting on such treasures like a fat little spider, only to allow any ignorant peasant to come in and see the books, as though Oghma's temple were some second-class library? None of this made any sense.

'I wish to see your oldest collection, the most archaic you have,' Chane repeated. 'Nothing originating after 902 DR, when the Rotting War decimated Chondath.'

'Couldn't your quest wait for morning? We could have breakfast before we start. I'm not a bad cook, you know.'

'No. I must see the books tonight.'

At the hall's end stood another door. It opened with a creak when the gnome touched it, and they both began descending a curved rock staircase. Dim lamplight made for poor visibility, and the endless circles as they made their way lower caused Chane to lose track of time and distance.

'How far?' he asked.

'Not far now. Almost there.'

But the descent continued. Farther down, the lamps were replaced by thick candles flickering in iron holders on the wall. For all Chane's frustration, at least the temple itself met his expectations-hidden corridors, rock staircases.

Perhaps this was how the foolish gnome kept his texts safe. Such a downward journey into the darkness would frighten an ordinary thief to death. But theatrics meant nothing to the ambitious priest. It would take more than a few cobwebs to make him lose his bearings. He was a bit disoriented, but certainly he could find his way out again.

'Here we are,' Mirrortor said finally. He stepped off the bottom landing into a corridor. 'Just a few more paces. Most of the well-read texts are upstairs, where the light is better. Almost no one asks for these anymore.'

'Probably because they are written in dead languages only a skilled loremaster would comprehend,' Chane answered, finding it difficult to keep contempt from his tone.

'And you find those 'dead texts' the most desirable?'

'Of course. They are like jewels and wine, the older the rarer. The rarer, the more precious. I would have thought you'd figured that out years ago.'

'That depends on your perspective. I often find value to be somewhat subjective.'

Then you are a fool, Chane thought. He followed the gnome down another stair, six steps curving to the left. They passed though a cobwebbed entryway and into a dusty room.

Upon stepping inside, euphoria filled Chane's breast, and he sighed aloud. 'I knew it would be like this.'

There weren't even shelves, simply stacks and stacks of leatherbound texts resting one atop the other. Scores, possibly hundreds filled his eyes, tales of heroic quests and dark deeds, the roots of Faerun's history. Gazing at one stack directly in front of him, he noticed runes along the spines of several texts glowing soft blue. 'Wards,' he whispered. Those books were to be avoided. His ultimate goal had always been attaining a high position among the priests of Oghma through knowledge of lore alone. He knew little of magic.

Spellbooks aside, plenty of other treasures surrounded him. Bindings of forest green and charcoal gray shone out in the darkness with a brighter intensity than any glowing runes-texts of long-forgotten myths and truths. He would translate and memorize them all, then teach stories that no one had heard in a dragon's age. People would stare at him in wonder. He would be revered and adored.

'Are these the most ancient in your temple?' he asked, reaching down as if to scratch his leg. His fingers brushed the knife's handle.

No one answered.

'Mirrortor?' He turned, but found himself alone. Where had the gnome gone? Perhaps he assumed Chane wanted time alone to read. It did not matter. He could find his victims upstairs without much trouble and silence them later.

He touched the spine of a faded brown cover and chills ran up his arm. Worn symbols, rather than actual words, had been etched deeply into the leather by some craftsman of a bygone era.

'Perfection.' He picked it up and turned to the first page. Inside, he discovered yellowed pages much better preserved than the cover. The symbols were a form of hieroglyphics once used in the old empires of the South, Mulho-rand and Unther. He recognized the mark for 'barbarians,' and his excitement grew. Could this be an account of ancient wars? He envisioned himself standing before a crowd in Lord Teelo's dining hall-candlelight reflecting off his red-gold hair-recounting tales a thousand years past.

Pulling the enchanted bag from inside his tunic, he placed the book carefully inside and began paging through another. Anything he could read too easily was discarded as too accessible. He wanted only the elusive, only the ones no other loremaster might already posses. After exhausting the possibilities in this room, he planned to move on to the next. There was no telling how many treasures lay hidden in the temple. And his bag allowed him to take as much from Mirrortor as he pleased. Although he'd never studied magic in detail, Chane found some of its creations quite useful.

Thinking again about the elven girl upstairs, he was struck by a pang of something akin to guilt. 'Oghma may be annoyed at first,' he whispered, 'but he'll cave in when he sees what a perfect rose I really am.'

After he'd pillaged the first pile of its priceless tomes, Chane tried to move to a new stack. The bag's weight jolted him to a stop. The books were heavy. Quite heavy. How could this be? After he had placed only fourteen in the bag, it was nearly full and difficult to carry. The enchantment should have allowed him to fill it forever. But peering inside, he saw that his magic bag was working as if it were nothing more than an ordinary sack.

Mirrortor might be more clever than anticipated, Chane mused. Perhaps he had placed wards against magic on the library. Even for a strong man like Chane, fourteen of the oversized books made a formidable burden. Would